


my father left me an acre of land

by rvnwyn



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Ghosts, Ghosts and Emotional Conversations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:07:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22281571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvnwyn/pseuds/rvnwyn
Summary: Bruce felt her presence before he could sense her, and the emotions washed over him in a split-second. He could feel the joy radiating off of her, the kindness and the compassion.He could feel his mother’s love.Bruce would have inferred that he was hallucinating if he didn’t feel her presence so clearly.He was dead, he must have been.
Relationships: Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	my father left me an acre of land

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "An Acre of Land" by PJ Harvey.

Magic was, in most cases, random and unexplainable. The rare occurrences where a viable explanation did exist, it went beyond science or understanding. There were too many possibilities and it contained information that the human-mind simply wouldn't be able to grasp.

Batman hated magic.

This creature was a psychic of sorts. That was the short list of all the viable knowledge that Superman and Batman could gather with their research. The magical creature had somehow landed on Earth just as the only remaining Justice League members who were not off-world were Batman and Superman, who were both susceptible to magic. It was almost ironically funny.

"It is not logical to rush in without a plan," Batman stated. If Superman hadn’t known him and worked with him for years, he might not even have caught the slight annoyance in his voice.

"We can’t afford to wait," Superman cautioned, and Batman did not make an effort to hide his hostility as he spoke up. "We have no information on its origin or motives."

"We need to readily be there if it decides to attack," Superman insisted as he suited up.

"It could be more prone to attack if it feels threatened first."

"You might be right, but we have already gathered all the information we can from afar, Batman. This creature is obviously very powerful. We need to be close-by in order to contain it."

Batman, at this point, was basically snarling at him. "How exactly do you plan to do that, Clark? Hurl it into the sun? You don’t know if it has a physical form."

Superman couldn’t help but show the slight agitation in his voice. "People could be in danger and I am leaving. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to."

It was the sort of phrasing that Superman would under normal circumstances never use on duty against one of his teammates and he felt slightly guilty for it, because he knew that Batman would never let him leave without backup. He walked off, and he couldn’t help but feel victorious that he had won the argument when Batman sighed loudly and followed him.

That unfortunately did not stop him from responding to every single one of Superman’s comments with a quick and snarky retort on their way, constantly reminding him that this was a bad idea.

As they came closer to the thankfully deserted area that the creature landed on, Batman only had spare moment to register his surroundings before a light flashed his eyes and he reflexively shut them.

The last voice he heard was Clark’s, frantically shouting his name.

* * *

Batman did not know where he was. All he could see was just the outline of a familiar place, but when he concentrated on it, everything shifted and disappeared. It was almost like he was trapped in a dream. Focusing too hard on his surroundings made his head pound and forced him to close his eyes.

Bruce felt her presence before he could sense her, and the emotions washed over him in a split-second. He could feel the joy radiating off of her, the kindness and the compassion.

He could feel his mother’s love.

Bruce would have inferred that he was hallucinating if he didn’t feel her presence so clearly.

He was dead, he must have been.

He opened his eyes in what was almost a childish hurry, and his vision was clear. He took a second to register his surroundings as the crackling of the fire reached his ears. He could not see her. Instead, sitting in the middle of the sofa in front of the fireplace was his father. With his broad chest and wide shoulders, he had seemed larger than life to Bruce as he was a child. But as he watched him from afar now, he did not seem so at all.

Underneath all of it, blooming in his chest, Bruce could feel anger.

"Why are you angry?" Thomas said calmly without looking up from the fireplace, and Bruce immediately faltered.

A shaky "what?" escaped his lips before he could stop it. Thomas slowly turned towards him and emphasized every word as if Bruce hadn’t clearly heard him. "Why are you angry?"

Bruce could face every situation he trained himself for completely still and clear-headed, and he hated that he was trembling as he was merely face to face with his father. Despite all of his efforts to sound steady, his voice still came out as a whimper. "You died." Bruce stated this fact as if it would explain everything.

"So did your mother," Thomas declared as he stood up to approach Bruce, and the just how nonchalant the comment was made Bruce wince, "but you are only angry at me. Why?"

"You’re the reason." Bruce could barely get the words out as he was forced to admit the blame he had long since buried inside him.

Thomas squinted as if he was confused, and this seemingly simple act made the pressure that Bruce had so far kept in bay choke him.

His father didn't understand. 

The world crumbled around Bruce at an instant.

"You can't even comprehend what you have caused," he spat, and his voice did not falter for the very first time. "My mother wanted to drop her purse, run away. She was the one negotiating while also shielding me! What did you do?"

Thomas took a step back at the sudden outburst, and Bruce felt like the ground was shaking beneath his feet.

"What were you thinking, directly challenging the robber? He was unstable, ready to go off at any moment. Any impulsive comment would have made him shoot, and it did!"

He must have started shouting somewhere along the way, but he didn’t remember when.

"You thought of yourself so highly that you never thought any harm could ever come to you. But none of your reputation or wealth can stand in the way of a gun."

Bruce did not notice his throat going sore. He did not notice his hands shaking.

"I trained myself to be prepared for any outcome. After that, I trained even more. Your pride took my mother from me. I have to make sure that mine doesn’t cost me the people I love. That's what you taught me when you left me standing in a dark alleyway, alone and scared, while your bloodied corpses lay beneath my feet!"

Bruce took a few rapid and short breaths and shut his eyes before he could garner his father’s reaction.

His chest was burning, making it harder and harder to breathe. Bruce tried to calm himself by thinking of Alfred’s voice. ‘ _Just take a deep breath, my boy,’_ he would assure him with a steady voice, _‘keep breathing and you will be alright.’_ The pounding in his ears was still overwhelming him. Even Alfred’s voice slipped away from his mind as he struggled to breathe, and he finally noticed the hand caressing his hair and the voice softly humming in his ear.

He could feel her again.

He opened his eyes. They were is his childhood room, both sitting in his bed. His mother had her arms wrapped around him. Bruce loosened away from her touch just enough to see her face and met the gentle smile on her lips.

She looked just like Bruce remembered.

Bruce took in her features and studied her for a short moment. "You don't blame him," Bruce stated without the need to hide his confusion. "The last thing he ever did for you was get you killed."

"Oh, Bruce," she whispered, and hearing her soft voice was enough to make him wish he could stay at her side forever. "I exist outside of time. I feel everything he ever made me feel in my lifetime all at once. That night is but a small part in my life. All the love and joy he gave me cannot be erased by mere seconds."

"You could have had a longer life. You could have..." Bruce's words got lodged in his throat.  
  
_You could have seen me grow.  
_  
"There is no need to dwell on possibilities after death," his mother said as she kept on gently caressing his hair, comforting him. "After a life is lived, there are no more possibilities left. All that remains for the ones that are left behind is to find love in the memories they possess."

The tenderness in his mother’s voice made him believe her.

They stayed like that for a while. Bruce, with his built body and huge demeanor, curled up like a child again in his mother’s small arms. He swallowed before he opened his mouth.

"Am I dead?" he whispered.

"Do you wish you were?"

"No," he answered, and it was the truth.

His mother chuckled softly as Bruce reveled in the pleasant sound. "Then no, you are not."

She slowly retreated her hands and Bruce wanted to protest against the loss of touch. As he saw that his mother was heading out the door, he jumped on his feet and started following her, afraid that he would lose her at any second.

He followed her until they reached the door to the main living room. His mother simply stepped out of the way, as if she was gesturing him to go inside.

Bruce opened the door and entered as his mother followed one step behind him. His father was still in the very same sofa, except that his head was buried in his hands. Bruce did not remember his father letting him see any sort of vulnerability before his death, and he was almost surprised.

"Martha wanted to drop her purse and run away. But if he simply had gotten what he wanted; he could have asked for more. He could have hurt her, or you," he took a shaky breath, and Bruce saw what he hadn’t fully comprehended when he was a child. When he thought back to the events of that day, he had always considered it to be the truth logically. Now, as he watched his father with his head buried in his hands and a tremble in his voice, Bruce could genuinely see it for the very first time.

His father had been terrified, standing in front of a gun’s barrel, with his wife and child behind him.

"I thought standing up to him would make him cower and run. I realized it was a mistake as soon as the words left my mouth." He raised his head to look at Bruce and he saw just how heartbroken his father looked. "But I lived long enough to see that he had left you alive, and that gave me comfort through my passing."

He stood up to walk over to Bruce. They were the same height.

"I understand your anger. The small seed that got planted in your chest the moment the first shot echoed in the alleyway. As you buried it deeper and deeper inside, it grew and festered. In the end it poisoned everything. Now, when you look at me, anger is all you can ever feel."

Deep down, Bruce knew it was the truth. He kept on watching his father as his father smiled sadly.  
  
"Even with all this rage you have been carrying around with you throughout your life, it didn't lead you towards destruction. It drove you to do good by other people. It led you to build yourself a life and a family."  
  
Bruce didn't realize he was crying until his father gently touched his cheek.  
  
"I am so proud of you, Bruce. But you need to let go of the anger that's been weighing you down. It's time you heal yourself instead of trying to fix everything around you."  
  
Bruce softened under his father’s touch and took in the warmth that radiated from his father's hand on his face. It was pleasant. "How are you here?"  
  
"Not everything needs to be explained, son. Sometimes, things just are."

Bruce felt the tightness around his chest loosen, like the weight crushing him had finally been lifted.

Forgiveness.

At the exact same time, his surroundings started to shift. As the realization that his parents were slowly fading away from him dawned on him, Bruce struggled to stay awake just to take one last look at both of them to commit their features into his memory.

He couldn’t help but ask. "Will I see you again?"

The last thing Bruce saw was his mother’s wistful smile. "We’ll be waiting for you when your time comes."

Everything around them got buried in darkness.

Bruce couldn’t feel them anymore.

* * *

Bruce sensed, before anything, the coldness left by his father’s fleeting touch on his left cheek and heat radiating off of Clark’s hand on his right shoulder.

When he opened his eyes, he recognized the Watchtower’s metal linings on the corners between the walls and the ceiling, which had meant that Clark had carried him there and placed him on the medical bed.

"What did you do?" he asked, and he couldn’t hide the accusing tone in his voice.

"Nothing. The creature just let go and disappeared."

Bruce saw Clark staring closely at him, waiting for an explanation or an indication that he was hurt. Bruce needed to act, to either reassure Clark that he was unhurt or to berate him for not listening to him. Instead of doing any of those things, Bruce let himself stare into nothingness for a long while. Just as Clark was about to reach a hand to help him up, Bruce got up and walked off.

He knew he should feel like he had gotten some sort of closure. But a small part of him selfishly felt as if he were eight years old again, sitting in the back of an ambulance with a blanket draped hastily over his shoulders and blood on his hands.

He felt like he had lost his parents all over again.

Clark understood that Bruce needed time to process whatever had happened on his own. But even his patience grew thin, and he lightly knocked on the door Bruce had firmly shut after storming off five minutes ago.

Clark entered the room and saw Bruce sitting on one of the armchairs they had placed in the corner of the room with a small coffee table and a shelf. Decorating small parts of the Watchtower for places they could all relax was Clark’s idea and Bruce had, as he had expected, opposed. Clark would never say it to Bruce’s face, but he knew that Bruce had used this corner more than anyone else in the team.

Clark took a moment to watch him. He had taken his cowl off and set it on the table sitting near him. Both his arms were stiffly placed on his sides. He looked tense even as he rested.

Bruce could tell that Clark had already used his x-ray vision to check up on him and found no sign of physical injury as he took the seat opposite him.

"This is my fault," Clark said as he watched Bruce intently. He was waiting for an explanation. "You have every right to be angry at me."

Bruce heaved a defeated sigh. "I’m not angry at you."

"You’re not?" Clark asked in a tone that could only be described as something in between bewilderment and disbelief, and Bruce got the sudden urge to chuckle before he composed himself and let his arms relax at his sides.

"No," Bruce stated, and Clark leaned back on his armchair, not sure if Bruce was going to provide any more information. They debriefed the League after every single mission anyway, but Clark wanted to make sure Bruce was alright before they returned their respective cities.

"Clark," Bruce called his name to urge him to look at him. He spoke without hesitation as they locked eyes. "I’m sorry."

Clark let a moment pass as they watched each other. He suspected this apology was meant for something more than their simple fight, but he was not going to push Bruce too far. "Why are you the one apologizing?"

"When we approached the creature, I suspect it latched itself onto the strongest negative emotion it could currently find. It was my anger towards you."

Bruce’s words made Clark unwittingly look away. He always had a hard time hiding his emotions when he felt guilty.

"It went to the origin of that anger and found my anger towards my father for what happened on the day they died." Clark was intrigued, and he settled back on listening to Bruce attentively. Bruce very rarely talked about his parents and when he did, it was for good reason.

"I was so angry at him for so, so long," Bruce confessed. "I was mostly angry that they died, but I projected it onto my father nonetheless." Clark thought that he hadn’t heard such genuine emotion in Bruce's voice for a very long time.

"I didn’t even know what to do with it first." He chuckled bitterly. "All that anger. I couldn’t contain it. Only when I got Batman, I got some peace. I still carry it everywhere with me."

Clark watched Bruce’s eyes. There was a sadness in them he couldn’t quite decipher.

"The creature made me face that anger and when it helped me transform a small part of it into forgiveness, it left."

"Are you hurt?" Clark asked, and they both knew he didn’t mean it physically.

"I got to talk to my parents, Clark. I got to listen to my father and I got to hug my mother again. Who else gets that chance?"

Clark must have found that answer to be earnest, Bruce thought, because a compassionate smile reached Clark’s eyes and tension left his face.

They sat in comfortable silence until Bruce shifted in his seat to get up, and Clark spoke hurriedly as if Bruce would disappear if he wasn’t fast enough. "I have one question." He hesitated for a moment. "Your parents. Do you think it was really them or was it the creature, showing you what you wanted to see?"

Bruce watched him for a moment before he got up and started to walk towards the door.

"Not everything needs to be explained, Clark."

_Sometimes, things just are._

****


End file.
